June 11, 2007

Chanelle Brown hasn’t found much she can relate to in the classic texts assigned in her English classes at Evanston Township High School. A top student, the junior has toiled through The Odyssey, All the King’s Men, The Scarlet Letter, and other standards, she said, while many of her classmates at the suburban Chicago school have given up reading them altogether.

“The themes are kind of dead now,” she said, “and I don’t feel like any of the stories apply to me.”

But Ms. Brown is glad that teachers at Evanston High, like educators elsewhere, have been supplementing the canon with recently published books to provide a more varied, and palatable, literary menu for students. Such decisions, some experts say, can add the kind of engaging and relevant content that high school reform advocates have been calling for.
Contemporary texts are making their way into the curriculum, a trend that some experts say makes reading more relevant.
—Photo illustrations by Sevans/Education Week

Nevertheless, the use of popular literature has run up against traditionalists, who fear it will dumb down the curriculum, and parents who object to the controversial themes that characterize many of the selections.

“A young-adult text is more accessible to students and allows them to think more about complex themes,” said Ken Lindblom, the director of English teacher education at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. “Just getting students reading texts that they enjoy is more important than exposing them to high literature.”

Doing so, however, can foster concerns about whether the content of such books is appropriate, Mr. Lindblom acknowledges. Many young-adult novels, for example, feature violent scenes, topics such as death and abuse, or protagonists who purposely hurt themselves.

“The jury is still out on whether exposing children to these ideas gives them ideas or helps them think through things they or their friends are experiencing,” Mr. Lindblom said. “Is reading about a girl cutting herself likely to prompt more girls into doing this to themselves or to get help for themselves or their friends?”